John Mearsheimer Warns: Israel BLOCKED UN Famine Aid Vehicle, UN Famine Aid Vehicle, IDF's Attack On Rafah BEGINS

 

 

Transcript

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so uh what is your opinion on US policy toward uh the Israeli War on Gaza I

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think it's a huge mistake I think uh most importantly I believe that Israel

0:16

is executing a genocide in uh Gaza and I

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think the United States is complicitous in that this genocide there's no way

0:27

that Israel could be waging this war against the Palestinians in Gaza without

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the help that the United States has been providing uh in fact it's truly shocking

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to me from a moral or ethical point of view that my government is supporting

0:48

the Israelis uh in this murderous campaign but to take it a step further

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it's also not in America's strategic interest to support Israel so

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unequivocally in this war because the last thing the United States wants is to

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get dragged into a war in the greater

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Middle East and what's happening here is that we are getting dragged into a war

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uh we're fighting against the houthis in the Red Sea as a result of this war and

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furthermore in the recent uh Iranian attack on Israel this

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was on April 14 the United States Navy and the United States Air Force played a

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key role in shooting down large numbers of those Iranian drones and cruise

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missiles that were aimed at Israel we were in the fight this is not in our

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interest so from a both from both a strategic and a moral point to view uh

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our unquestioned support of Israel I believe is a huge mistake uh during the

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first part of our interview we discussed the um question of power and weakness

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but from the Polish uh perspective the American policy looks a little bit schizophrenic not weak schizophrenic

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Biden and the US Administration are calling on Israel to stop killing civilians to respect the human rights do

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not bomb the civilians in Gaza Strip uh and at the same time they provide Israel

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with bombs how to explain that well at one level it's almost impossible to

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explain because it's so contradictory uh Biden has said that the Israelis are engaging in indiscriminate

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bombing he has said that their behavior is over the toop he knows full well that

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the international court of justice said there was enough evidence to say

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the Israelis might be committing a genocide he knows all this nevertheless

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he is providing the Israelis with the Weaponry to execute this genocide to act

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as if they're over the toop I mean in a certain sense it's just unfathomable

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it's how can this be but I think if you step back and you think about it what's really going on here is that the United

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States and here we're talking about the Biden Administration and in particular president Biden we have very little leverage over

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the Israelis the Israelis can do pretty much anything they want and if we tell them to stop they just thumb their nose

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at us and you say to yourself why is this the case and as I and Steve Walt

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explain in this book it's because of the awesome power of the Israel Lobby uh we

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have this Lobby this interest group in the United States that is remarkably powerful

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and it goes to Great Lengths to ensure that the United States

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provides Israel with unconditional support those are the key words

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unconditional support in other words no matter what Israel does we support them

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so here you have Israel doing something that's not in the American strategic interest and from a moral point of view

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it's certainly not in their interest yet we're supporting them unconditionally Biden is providing them with diplomatic

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support economic support and Military Support and you ask yourself why is this

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the case and it is due in large part to the power of the

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lobby so um but I think that if Biden would like Israel to stop bombing

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children in Gaza this is just a very easy solution stop providing them with bombs is this impossible to say no

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Israel you going to get it I think it's impossible yeah because

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of the lobby it it I know for for many non-americans it's hard to believe but

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if if you just sort of look at the history of US Israel relations and you

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sort of look at it uh you know I think since since about 1980 if you go back to

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1980 up to the present the lobby has been remarkably powerful over that time

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frame and if anything it's gotten more power powerful with the passage of time and uh if you look at the votes on

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Capitol Hill the votes in Congress on supporting Israel hardly any Congress

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people will oppose uh supporting Israel some will but not many uh and the reason

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is they fear the lobby they fear that if they oppose the lobby uh or they oppose Israel and oppose the favored policies

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of the lobby the lobby will come after them and the lobby will destroy their their political careers and you want to

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think about Joe Biden Joe Biden is up for reelection in November and he understands very well that if he

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antagonizes the Israel Lobby if he's tough with the Israelis he will pay a

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huge political price in the fall because the lobby will put its guns sits on him

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and make it very difficult for him to win reelection so this is why he is pursuing

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the policy that is against the interest of United States of America yes look every American president since

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Jimmy Carter has been in favor of a two-state solution and every president

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has been deeply interested in putting pressure on Israel to move to a two-state solution because we understand

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that we and this is most Americans understand that if there's any hope of

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solving this conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians the Palestinians need a state of their

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own and the two State solution is the best way to give the Palestinians of the

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a state of their own but virtually every Israeli government has opposed A

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two-state solution there have been one or two governments that flirted with the idea but never went very far right and

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every time an American president and this was certainly true with people like Carter people like Obama people like

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Bill Clinton every time one of those presidents put any pressure on Israel to accept the two-state solution the lobby

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moved in and made it unequivocally clear that pressure on Israel was unacceptable

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so the end result is we've never gotten a two-state solution and Israel has continued to expand its occupation of

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the West Bank and it's continued uh since roughly 2006 now to

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keep the Palestinians uh contained in a giant open air prison in Gaza uh and the

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Americans have understood All Along American leaders have understood all along that this was going to blow up in

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Israel's face and in araas and we tried to rectify the problem but we never

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couldn't we never even came close and it was because of Israeli resistance now

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you say Israel is a much smaller and weaker country than the United States it's dependent on the United States for

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its Security in all sorts of ways shouldn't the United States have enormous leverage over Israel and the

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answer is yes we should have enormous leverage but why don't we have normal

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leverage because of the lobby which prohibits us forbids us from treating

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Israel as a normal country just very important to understand we cannot treat Israel like a normal country we cannot

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treat Israel the way we treat the way we deal with Poland the way we deal with Britain the way we deal with Japan the

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way we deal with Nigeria can't do that it's a special relationship that has no

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parallel in history and the end result is that

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Israel is pretty much free to do what it wants and when it does that it gets us

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into all sorts of trouble and you want to understand if there was no Israel Lobby if

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you had an America that had no Israel Lobby we would have a fundamentally

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different policy towards Israel um you said about the lobby but

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maybe it's a matter of Evangelical Christians I just recently watched the interview with a very important very

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powerful American politician and he uh said that this is just the supporting

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Israel is a duty of Faith it's in God's will yeah well there are what we call

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Christian Zion these are Christian evangelicals uh who believe that to

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facilitate the second coming of Christ it is essential that Israel control all

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of the territory uh in the Middle East that forms what I'll call Greater Israel so

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the more Israel expands and the more territory it controls in that historical

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area of Palestine or what I was calling greater Israel uh the closer we will will come to the second coming of Christ

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This is a belief that is deep-seated uh in the minds of many Christian evangelicals so they support

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Israel uh down the line and what they want to see is they want to see Israel dominate the Palestinians and Conquer

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more and more territory and then their belief is that we will have the second

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coming of Christ well I have to tell you sir that for me as a Roman Catholic uh it's very

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hard to accept the logic that killing of 14,000 uh Palestinian children in Gaza

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it's uh in God's will you'll get no argument from me and

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I I I believe you'll get no argument from the vast majority of uh Americans

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including uh uh the vast majority of American

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Jews by the way it's very important to understand just talking about the Israel Lobby sometimes people people think that

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it's the Jewish Lobby and that would be a fundamental mistake because uh many

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Jews in the United States are deeply opposed to what Israel is doing and many

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Jews in the United States are deeply opposed to what the lobby does uh and uh so they're not in the

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lobby uh and uh there's an organization called Jewish voice for peace for example and Jewish voice for peace is in

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many ways at War with the Israel Lobby so it's not a Jewish Lobby it's the

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Israel Lobby and again you want to remember that there are Christian evangelicals or what we call Christian

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zionists who are in the Israel Lobby uh so it's not all Jews and it includes

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Christian zionists and a number of other Christians as well I had I don't know a

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hundred discussions with Israelis about that and with Americans and they always say the same that American interest and

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Israeli interest is exactly 100% the same what's good for Israel it's good

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for good for America what's good for America it's good for Israel uh you comment on that they have to say that

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they have to say that because once they admit that Israel and the United States

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may have different interests then you can't make the argument that the United States should support Israel no matter

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what you can make the argument that we should support Israel no matter what it

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does we should provide unconditional support for Israel if you believe

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there's no difference between America's national interest and Israel's National interest but this is not a serious

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argument no two states on the planet have the same interests you can pick any

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two states you want in the system and we can provide lots of evidence that those

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two states may have overlapping interests most of the time but there will be instances where their interests

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clash and this is certainly true with the United States and Israel and this is the point that I was making to you about

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a two-state solution President Bill Clinton believed it was in America's national interest to get a two-state

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solution uh the Israelis did not believe that and uh we had clashing interests we

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do not think it's a good thing that Israel has nuclear weapons from Israel's point of view it's a wonderful thing

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that they have nuclear weapons we have clashing interests on this is just part of the warp and woof

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of daily life in the International System but Israel's supporters want to make the argument

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that there's no difference in terms of our interests because that allows them

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to make the argument that we should support Israel no matter what but so I understand that the main goal of the

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lobby is to push the American politicians and American Administration

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to pursue the policy that is against the American interests it's very

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serious there is no question that the end result of what the lobby does is to

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sometimes push the United States to do things that are not in the American

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national interest and are in Israel's interest so why America is tolerating something like that because the lobby is

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so powerful that nobody can do anything it's that

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simple sir you are a realist and we are talking about uh big policy uh policy of

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big great Powers but uh Americans like to talk about politics in terms of

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values and I call it a cowboy policy uh cowboy cowboy politics uh we are the

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good guys and all our enemies are the bad guys we fight for human rights and democracy around the world uh but

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meanwhile when it comes to the Middle East America is supporting a country that violates the human rights bomb

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civilians America blocks all the UN resolutions uh that are uh critical of

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Israel and how does it affect us credibility around the world well

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there's no question that America loves to talk about its commitment to values uh I would make the argument that if you

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look at American foreign policy from the beginning uh we have

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done many things that demonstrate that we don't care that much uh when push comes

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to shove about American values uh We've you know gone around the world saying

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that we love democracy that we're deeply interested in promoting and facilitating democracy but in fact we have overthrown

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democratically elected governments all over the world for a long period of time

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uh during the Cold War for example in 1953 three we overthrew a democratically

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elected government in Iran and then a year later in 1954 we overthrew a

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democratically elected government in Guatemala and then of course Very

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famously uh in the 1970s we overthrew the aende government in Chile uh and I

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could go on and on uh but with regard to Israel right and what's going on today

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what to remember is that first of all Israel is an aparte state which is a

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crime against humanity and second it is executing a genocide you just want to

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think about what I'm saying here independent of what Israel is doing in Gaza it is an apartheid state there have

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been three major studies that were done by three of the most important human

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rights groups in the world Human Rights Watch amnesty International and betum

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which is an Israeli Human Rights group all three of those human rights groups

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have issued big reports detailing why Israel is an aparti state

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so if you look at Israel's Behavior towards the Palestinians inside of Greater Israel Over time right this

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country Israel has established itself as an aparte state that's a crime against

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humanity furthermore we now have a situation since October 7th where the

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Israelis are engaged in a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in

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Gaza this is absolutely horrific what is happening to the Palestinians it's hard to believe especially since we can see

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it on television and on the internet that we are supporting this but we are

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so what does this say about American values that we have been supporting what

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is effectively an partide state for decades on end and now we are supporting

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that apartheid state while it engages in genocide what it tells you is that the

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Americans talk a lot about values but when it comes to actual practice they

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are often times willing to subordinate those values to other

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interests and there is no better case that highlights uh that tendency in the

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United States and American relations with Israel so uh sir there's no doubt about

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that but let's put the morality on the side and let's talk about interests and

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uh human lives uh is there a connection between the US policy of uh supporting

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Israel and uh terrorist attack attacks against America like 9911 there's no question that's true

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Osama Bin Laden said that Osama Bin Laden has made it clear that the main reason he attacked the United States was

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because of American policy towards the Palestinians of course it's very hard to say that here in the United States

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because the lobby goes to Great Lengths to rule that kind of argument uh out of

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court you you make that argument people will say you're an anti- Semite uh and

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you won't get your views promulgated in the mainstream media by the way the same

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thing is true with the Iraq War if you look at the origins of the Iraq War and

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Steve Walt and I have a big chapter on the origins of the Iraq War in this book

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there is no question that the lobby played a key role that Israel itself and

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here we're talking mainly about Benjamin Netanyahu not only Benjamin Netanyahu came into testified in the United States

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about the need to go to war in Iraq but other Israeli leaders as well pushed us very hard as did the lobby uh to engage

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in the Iraq war or to invade Iraq in March of 2003 but you cannot make that

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argument uh in the mainstream media and if you look at all the books that have

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been coming out on the causes of the Iraq War hardly anybody talks about the

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Israeli angle before the war started when it looked like we were going to win a spectacular Victory the lobby and a

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lot of supporters of Israel and the Israelis themselves were very gung-ho about advertising how good a war against

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Iraq would be for Israel but then when the war turned into a disaster they didn't want anybody talking about Israel

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having a role in causing that war but if you read the chapter that Steve and I

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wrote it is manifestly clear that the lobby and is itself played a key role

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and I want to underline that word key they played a key role in pushing us into that war but it's very hard to make

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that argument um what was the reaction of Israeli

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Lobby uh when you published your book well there was outrage on the part

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of uh Israeli Israel supporters in the United States people in the law

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and they went to Great Lengths to smear us uh and to do everything they could to

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you know suppress the article and and then to suppress the book uh I mean

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that's the way the lobby operates the lobby operates at two different levels it's very important to understand this

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one is and you were talking about this before they influence policy makers okay there's no question that the lobby goes

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to Great Lengths uh to influence how congressmen vote and to influence the

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White House no matter who's in the Oval Office they go to Great Lanes to

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influence uh the policymaking process and they're very successful they also go to Great Links

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to influence the discourse the public discourse and this is where we came in

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because what we were doing was throwing out first an article and then throwing out a book that dealt with the lobby and

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dealt with Israel and it automatically got a huge amount of attention you want

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to remember our book was on the New York Time Best Seller list right and the

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article you know it was like a bombshell when it came out and uh the end result right the end

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result is that the lobby understood they were in trouble right because the word

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was now out nobody knew much about the lobby hardly anybody knew how powerful

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it was and here are these two academics one from the University of Chicago and the other from Harvard University you

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know from Elite universities writing a very scholarly article SL book on how

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the lobby operates and what it does and what the upside and downside of the lobby is right and they just felt they

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had to uh do everything they could uh to shut us down and and they went to Great

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Lengths and a lot of it involves smearing us you know calling us anti-semites and uh when we had speaking

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engagements and they found out that we had speaking engagements they would go to Great Lengths to approach the

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organizers and ask them to cancel our appearance this is what happened at Google we were supposed to fly to

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California to give a talk at Google headquarters on the book and the lobby found out about it and called the people

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up at Google and we were cancelled uh and I could tell you all sorts of stories about uh how they worked uh to

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you know our influence we are in America the land of the free the home of the brave the kingdom of free

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speech I cannot believe it that's not the America I know these days that was

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the America I basically knew when I was young but uh it's gone away and on this issue there's no free speech on this

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issue they cannot they look they cannot afford to have free speech on this issue

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because once you have free speech and people begin to talk openly and in a

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rational way about the US Israeli relationship and the influence of the

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lobby it would cause all sorts of problems for Israel and for the lobby

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because people would quickly see that Israel and the United States don't have the same interest and that the lobby is

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pushing us to support Israel when it's not in our interest and this would be disastrous for the lobby so they go to

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Great Lengths to control the discourse um and uh and in the past they

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were very successful at it it's just become very hard and they're nowhere near as good at it today as they once

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were they're as good as they've ever been at controlling the policy makers that's the upper level right and if you

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look at the Biden Administration go back to our discussion of of why the Biden

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Administration is supporting this apartheid state as it executes a genocide you can see that the lobby is

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still deadly effective at the policymaking level but if you get down to the level of the

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discourse uh the discourse in the United States has changed right thanks to this

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book we I I do believe at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging I do think

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that we made some difference oh okay John Biden once said that Israel is the

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America's best investment that the best Aly uh the best ally in the Middle East

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uh do you agree with that opinion uh does the alliance with Israel make the US strategic position in region stronger

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uh for example did Israel help the US during the wars in Iraq in 1991 in

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2003 uh Israel contrary to what Joe Biden thinks is an albatross around

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their neck uh the idea that it's a strategic asset is in my opinion not a

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serious argument uh and uh it was an Albatros in

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1991 uh and it was no help in 2003 uh so the argument that uh you know

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uh Israel has been helpful to the United States in fighting its wars in the Middle East is is a myth that the lobby

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has helped create uh and in fact fact Israel has initiated a number of wars

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that have gotten us into trouble and where we've had to move in and fix the

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mess that they created uh the 1982 invasion of Lebanon is a perfect case in

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point uh the 1956 invasion of uh the

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Sinai uh is another case in point uh so I I think the argument that Israel is

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this great strategic asset is one that is very hard to

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support well sir my point is just I'm just trying to find a uh reasonable

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explanation for this policy a logic and let's talk about the financial financial

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side of the Israeli American Alliance maybe us is just uh making a big money

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from this Alliance no Israel is making the big money you've got it backwards

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right the United States has given more Aid to Israel than it's given to any any

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other country since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 we give Israel huge

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amounts of money we we just passed a package of Aid uh that includes money

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for Ukraine of course and it includes $26

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billion for uh for Israel this is above

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the you know three plus billion dollars we give them every year I mean Israel is

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is a developed country this is not some backward country uh this is a country

29:05

that has a very sophisticated uh industrial base uh they're very sophisticated when it comes

29:11

to information Technologies and and it's a quite wealthy country uh but we give

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them huge amounts of money every year on a regular basis and we give them all sorts of other Aid every year on a

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regular basis and now we're giving him an extra $26 billion and by the way Joe Biden only asked for12 billion but

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Congress upped it to $26 billion right sir and not only we giving them Aid

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economic aid remember we basically were a key participant in their recent fight

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with Iran exactly but um sir I have to tell you that after watching our

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interview if I would be an American citizen I would be outrage it's but if I

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would be an Israeli I would be proud what a powerful

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Lobby there's no question about it I often say that you you have to take your

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hat off to the lobby it is remarkably effective right remarkably effective the

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people in the lobby who really matter the people who run it are terribly smart

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uh terribly enterprising they're clever and they have done a fantastic job of

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getting what they want want and what Israel wants but Steve and I argue that

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not only are the lobbies efforts not in America's interests they're not in

30:40

Israel's interest as well we believe that the policies that the lobby has

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pursued and succeeded in getting through the American political system have not

30:52

been good for Israel and just go to the matter of a two-state solution I believe

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that if we had gotten a two-state solution if the American government had been able to put really strong pressure

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on Israel push through a two-state solution we wouldn't have had October 7th and Israel would be in much better

31:10

shape today than it's in but American Presidents going back to Jimmy Carter

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who have tried to do that failed at every turn and the end result is there's no two-state solution and we now have a

31:24

greater Israel and that greater Israel is an apartheid state a greater Israel than an aparti that is

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an apartheid state is not good for Israel and the lobby helped produce

31:35

that uh but maybe maybe uh maybe do you believe that America will change its

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policy towards the uh Middle East uh Trump if he wins the elections maybe he

31:47

will be more pragmatic Trump was probably worse than Biden not by much because you couldn't

31:54

be much worse than Biden when it came to Israel but Trump was uh as I remember he moved the uh

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American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem correct correct and he he

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helped uh with the with the Abraham Accords didn't put much pressure on the

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Israelis to move to a two-state solution oh he was he was not helpful at all uh

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so we will face the uh make Israel great again policy yeah well Israel is in real

32:27

trouble but I just want to make one other point you just going back to Trump one thing that has happened

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here is that uh support for Israel in the Democratic party has uh diminished

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in significant ways uh Israel and the lobby are in real

32:48

trouble inside the Democratic party in contrast Israel's position and

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the Lobby's position in the Republican party has increased and the lobby has

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always prided itself on having bipartisan support for Israel in other

33:06

words both Republicans and Democrats support Israel support the lobby but what we're seeing now is support for

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Israel and the Republican party is going up while it's going down in the Democratic

33:19

party and this is not good uh but anyway just to go back to Trump trump is a

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Republican and he has you know colleagues and a republican base that is

33:31

super pro-israel that's where the Christian evangelicals are uh so you're

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more likely to have trouble with the Democrats but again who's the President Joe Biden he's a Democrat and as you see

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he supports Israel down the line and that just goes to show you that at the

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policy level the difference between Republicans and Democrats just doesn't matter

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uh sir you said that uh in your opinion Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza right now as we speak some people um

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argue that this term is an exaggeration that uh maybe maybe Israel is committing

34:14

war crimes but not genocide and the argument is that Israel is not trying to kill all the

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Palestinians well sometimes my response to that answer is let's just call it mass murder Mur they're not engaging in

34:29

genocide they're engaging in mass murder uh you know they've killed about 13,000

34:35

children uh isn't that morally reprehensible in

34:41

the extreme I think it is so you know you want to call it genocide fine you want to call it mass murder I don't

34:48

think it matters that much but let's go back to the charge of genocide it's very clear if you look at

34:56

the definition of genocide and international law that you don't have to kill all of the people

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in a particular group for that murderous campaign to qualify as genocide you

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really just have to kill a substantial portion so I think there's no question

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that the Israelis have not and probably will not have killed every Palestinian

35:26

in Gaza when all said and done but if they were to kill let's say 90% of the

35:33

Palestinian population is that not a genocide uh I think according to the

35:41

definition that was formulated in 1948 that is a genocide right even though

35:47

they didn't kill every Palestinian another point you want to keep in mind is that in any

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genocide you're going to start off with just a few people being killed at the

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beginning and then at the end when it stops some substantial number if not all

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will have been killed I mean if Hitler had his way he would have killed all the Jews there's no question about that but

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the fact is he didn't kill all the Jews thankfully right

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and what happened was that the genocide was stopped in its tracks mainly by the

36:29

Soviet Union coming across Eastern Europe and into Poland where most of the death camps were because that's where

36:36

most of the Jews were of course and by the Americans and the British who were coming in the other direction so was the

36:41

defeat of Nazi Germany that stopped the genocide from ending up killing every

36:48

Jew in Europe but nevertheless huge numbers of Jews died let's assume that

36:55

the that the campaign the Israeli campaign in Gaza is ended uh in October

37:04

let's say on October first and let's just say

37:10

75,000 Palestinians are murdered right uh but International pressure forces the

37:17

Israelis to stop on October 1st it's still a genocide it's just a genocide

37:23

that was stopped in its tracks right and what what the international court of

37:29

justice was trying to do was stop what they thought looked like a genocide just

37:35

very important to understand that the international court of justice did not say this is a genocide there will be a

37:41

court hearing or a set of Court hearings to determine that what the international court of justice said in February is

37:49

that there is sufficient evidence to think that there is a genocide taking place and what we have to do is move in

37:56

now and stop it right that's why the instructions that the court issued to

38:03

the Israelis said don't do this don't do that do this do that the court was just

38:09

trying to stop what they thought was a genocide in its tracks uh so you just want to understand

38:17

that even though they haven't killed everybody every Palestinian and thank God they haven't killed every

38:23

Palestinian they've killed an enormous number of Palestinians a number an enormous number of

38:30

Palestinians might die of famine or hunger uh in in the next few months all

38:36

the ingredients are here for killing massive numbers of Palestinians and the

38:41

Israelis don't seem to show any interest in putting an end to this as you know

38:48

Biden has putting verbal pressure on them to back off because Biden understands just how

38:57

how serious this situation is but there's no evidence that they're backing off they're dragging their feet on

39:04

letting more food in they're continuing to bomb they're continuing to shoot people uh they're destroying hospitals

39:11

they're talking about going into Rafa which is filled with probably around 1.3 million Palestinians who are almost all

39:18

refugees and almost everybody agrees that if the IDF goes into Rafa huge

39:23

numbers of civilians will be killed the Israelis don't care right this has all the ear marks of a

39:30

genocide and furthermore when you look at what the Israelis were saying after October 7th about the Palestinians and

39:37

how to deal with the Palestinians they were talking them talking about the Palestinians as animals or Human animals

39:45

uh and they were talking about cutting off all food all medicine all water and

39:50

all fuel forever right uh knowing full well what the consequences this would be

39:58

there was even one Minister who talked about dropping a nuclear bomb on the Palestinians in Gaza so there was all

40:04

sorts of evidence of genocidal intent and of course the international court of justice ruled on this uh basis as well

40:14

uh so so the Israelis right have been behaving in ways that

40:22

have that lots of people think look like a genocide and uh and we have again been

40:29

supporting them now again to go back where you started it might not be a genocide uh maybe it's just mass murder

40:37

but in my opinion we should not be supporting mass murder what is happening to the Palestinians on top of what

40:45

happened to them before October 7th all those years being locked up in this

40:51

giant open air prison what Norman finklestein calls a concentration camp they were locked up in a concentration

40:58

camp Norman argues I think he's correct right and if you don't want to call it a concentration camp call it an open air

41:03

prison what the Israelis were doing to the Palestinians in Gaza was absolutely

41:08

abhorent this is before October 7th and what they've done since October 7th is

41:14

even worse and again the United States is

41:19

complicitous Sir let's turn the table uh how would you uh describe what happened

41:26

on October 7th I think what happened on October 7th uh

41:32

is that you had a giant Prison Break uh that Hamas and I think probably about 11

41:40

other organizations 11 other resistance groups inside of Gaza broke

41:48

out uh and amazingly the Israelis were unprepared

41:55

for the attack uh the Israelis just let their guard down in ways that are hard

42:01

to believe in fact today as time of this filming the Israeli intelligence Chief

42:10

just resigned he resigned today and he resigned because he failed on October

42:16

7th so the Israelis were caught completely by surprise uh and all of these resistance

42:24

groups from ad of Gaza poured through the holes in the fence that were

42:30

created uh and they killed uh a significant number of Israeli

42:37

military personnel and they killed a significant number of

42:44

civilians but it's also important to understand that the Israelis themselves

42:50

also killed a good number of civilians we have no idea what the number is but

42:55

the Israelis got caught completely by surprise and what they did was they sent

43:01

tanks and attack helicopters down to the area that uh Hamas and these

43:10

other resistance groups had occupied and the helicopters and the tanks started

43:17

shooting uh at Hamas uh and it's also clear in some

43:24

cases they actually shot Israelis to prevent them from becoming Hamas become

43:29

becoming hostages for Hamas so in this

43:34

great configration that was taking place in Gaza the Israelis either

43:41

accidentally in the F of war or purposely ended up killing a substantial

43:48

number of Israeli citizens so I don't want to say that

43:55

amamas didn't kill you huge numbers of civilians they did Hamas and the other

44:02

organizations but the Israelis themselves caught up in the fog of War

44:08

uh ended up killing a large number of Israelis as

44:14

well and very importantly the Palestinians mainly Hamas made off with

44:21

about 240 hostages and the Israelis are remarkably sensitive when it comes to

44:27

hostages so the fact that Hamas and its allies Got Away uh or got back to Gaza

44:36

with 240 hostages was a huge problem for

44:41

the Israelis and I want to make one additional point on this it's very

44:46

important to understand that the Israelis have long had a Doctrine called the Hannibal Doctrine and most people

44:53

will find this hard to believe but you can look it up on the internet it is true uh the Hannibal Doctrine says that

45:02

if the Israeli military sees a soldier or a civilian being captured by a

45:10

Palestinian group like Hamas it should shoot that Israeli citizen or Israeli

45:18

soldier rather than let it be taken prisoner or hostage by Hamas or or

45:27

whatever uh resistance group we're talking about here because from an

45:32

Israeli point of view it is such a disaster to have hostages because to get

45:38

those hostages back the Israelis have to pay an enormous price and there's no question that this has been the case so

45:45

the Israelis came up with What's called the Hannibal Doctrine and the Hannibal Doctrine again says that if you see

45:52

Hamas Fighters escaping with civilians Israeli civilians you shoot the Israeli

45:58

civilians this is the Hannibal Doctrine and it's very clear an Israeli newspaper

46:04

has done a big study it's available on the internet on this issue they've looked into it and it's clear that the

46:10

Israeli High command on October 7th invoke the Hannibal Doctrine so the

46:15

Israelis purposely shot some of their own citizens and maybe even some of

46:20

their own soldiers who had been captured and were being transported back into

46:26

Gaza and in addition to that as I said before you just want to understand that in the

46:31

fog of War where down on the ground you have all of these Fighters Palestinian

46:38

fighters who are intermixed with civilians and military personnel from the Israeli Defense Forces it's going to

46:46

just happen that the Israeli helicopters or tanks are going to end up shooting uh

46:53

some some of their own people uh and there's no question that happened what the numbers look like is hard to say but

47:00

this is just a sort of a brief description of the chaos that took place

47:07

uh on that day what I meant was the definition your definition there is no doubt that uh

47:14

Israelis killed some of the uh civilians but there's also no doubt that many of

47:21

the civilians were murdered by Hamas uh we saw the uh films videos of uh Hamas

47:29

members just hunting juice in uh soter Israel on October 7th so was it a war

47:36

crime a terrorist attack a pgam uh how would you call I I would say that the

47:43

killing of civilians by Hamas was clearly a war crime there's no doubt

47:48

about it uh I I have uh no doubt in my

47:54

mind that Hamas and the the other groups killed civilians there's no question

48:00

about that and that is a war crime killing Military Officers and soldiers in the IDF is not

48:08

a war crime according to international law given that we're talking about an occupation Hamas has a right to resist

48:16

and they can pick a fight with the IDF but once you start murdering I want to use that word

48:24

murdering civilians in my opinion you're committing a war crime in the same way that I think the Israelis are committing

48:30

a war crime when they murder Palestinians in Gaza I think that

48:36

Hamas is committing a war crime when it murders uh uh civilians in Gaza it was

48:44

it was horrible what happened on October 7th I don't want to make light of it uh

48:49

but I do want to emphasize that the reason you had this attack on October

48:55

7th was because Hamas was locked up the Palestinians

49:02

were locked up in a giant open air prison and there was an old Bob Dylan

49:08

song from the 1960s that had a line in it that said when you ain't got nothing

49:14

you got nothing to lose and if you grew up in

49:19

Gaza in these horrible conditions and you want to understand these were

49:25

horrible conditions you really had nothing to lose and what happened on

49:30

October 7th is you had a prison break and that was legal in terms of

49:37

international law the Palestinians had a right to resist but in terms of international law

49:44

they did not have a right to kill civilians and here we're talking about murdering civilians of course uh we can agree on

49:52

that that the noble uh goal or cause doesn't Justified killing innocent

49:58

people yeah the ends don't justify the means they say horrific horrific methods

50:05

uh so do you see any possibility offending the Middle East uh conflict between Israel and Palestinians which

50:12

Solutions seems to uh seems more rational to you uh two-state solution or

50:17

or white State what sorry I think there are possible Futures theoretically four

50:25

possible futur one is a greater Israel which would include uh Israel before the 1967 war

50:34

plus the West Bank Plus Gaza that's greater Israel that's what you have today and the first possibility is that

50:42

greater Israel is a democracy one person one vote and of course because there are

50:49

roughly the same number of Palestinians and Jews in Greater Israel and the Palestinians are having more babies than

50:55

the Jews it would eventually be a Palestinian state so that can't happen

51:01

second possibility is that you have a greater Israel that is an aparte State

51:08

and that's one in which the Jews dominate the Palestinians that's what you now have

51:15

the third option is you have a two-state solution and huge numbers of people want

51:21

a two-state solution but the Israelis have no interest in a two-state solution Hamas has no interest than a two-state

51:27

solution and after the ongoing war after October 7th it's hard to imagine how you

51:33

get a two-state solution so my point is with regard to the first possibility a

51:40

greater Israel that's a democracy that's not going to happen with regard to a two-state solution that's not going to

51:46

happen and you now have an apartheid state that brings us to the fourth possible future that's where the Israeli

51:54

Jews ethnically cleans the Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank and you get

52:02

a greater Israel that is a Jewish State and there are hardly any Palestinians

52:07

inside greater Israel's borders in my opinion that's the goal of Israeli

52:15

Elites and they saw October 7th as an opportunity to drive the Palestinians

52:23

out of Gaza the reason that you have seen this vicious bombing campaign

52:29

against the Palestinians in Gaza is because the principal aim was to drive

52:35

the Palestinians out you want to remember that there have been two great ethnic cleansings in Israel's history in

52:43

1948 and again in 1967 they drove about

52:49

750,000 Palestinians out of their homes in 1948 and about

52:55

250,000 in 1967 here was another war wars are where

53:01

opportunities present themselves to ethnically cleanse so when you look at all this death and destruction in Gaza

53:08

you want to ask yourself what's the principal goal what are the Israelis trying to do what they were trying to do

53:14

is ethnically cleanse Gaza and they failed the Palestinians remain in place

53:20

yet they continued to pound them and they continue to destroy their cultural institutions their governing

53:27

institutions because they want them to leave but again they have failed that

53:33

means you're back to an apartheid state so I think for the foreseeable future

53:39

what you will have is an apartheid state in Greater Israel and the Israelis will

53:44

be looking for opportunities all the time to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians on the other hand will

53:51

continue to resist remember October 7th was not the first uprising there was the

53:57

first inapa there was the second inapa there was October 7th so if this

54:02

apartheid state remains in place you will have more resistance in the future

54:08

uh from the Palestinians and by the way the Israelis will have significant trouble with World opinion in places

54:16

like Poland even places like the United States because people Now understand what the Israelis are up to and this is

54:23

disastrous for Israel that's why they want ethnically cleansed they want to put an end to apartheid Israel and get

54:32

an is a greater Israel that is by and large run by nothing but Israeli Jews

54:39

but that's very hard to do sir there is also a fifth option maybe the Palestinians the Hamas

54:47

will win the conflict and throw the Israelis into the sea as the famous uh

54:52

Hamas slogan promises is this possible I hadn't thought about that but uh I

55:00

probably hadn't thought about that because I don't think it's possible in the foreseeable future they too weak

55:06

yeah the Palestinians are too weak the Israelis are too strong and getting back to our earlier conversation the Israelis

55:13

are joined at the hip with the United States the United States supports Israel so it would be the United States and

55:19

Israel against the Palestinians I think that if you look

55:25

carefully inside inside Israel and you look at the centrifugal forces inside of

55:33

Israel uh one could argue that the future of Israel is in

55:38

question uh it's it's a country where there just lots of truly significant

55:45

problems uh and how they play themselves out is very hard to say um you want to remember that after

55:53

October 7th uh estimates are that probably about 500,000 Israelis left the

56:00

country um and furthermore one of the key issues that's yet to be resolved is

56:06

the relationship between the ultra Orthodox Jews in Israel and the rest of

56:11

the population the ultra Orthodox now represent about 133% of the population

56:17

but given that the birth rate among the ultra Orthodox is so high I've seen

56:23

estimates that your average Ultra Orthodox woman has seven babies right

56:29

that means that by about 2050 uh the ultra Orthodox will be

56:35

roughly 30% of the population again they're about 133% now they'll be

56:40

30% uh many people believe that Israel is not sustainable over the long term uh

56:48

if the ultra Orthodox become so numerous that they dominate the body politic uh

56:55

is I'm sure you know there's a movement now in Israel to get the ultra Orthodox to serve in the military because the

57:02

Israelis need all the soldiers they can get but the ultra Orthodox refuse to serve in the military the ultra Orthodox

57:09

men don't work uh they're subsidized by the government and there's just a huge amount of dissatisfaction about this

57:15

situation and again this has taking place in a world where there uh where only 133% of the population is old for

57:22

orthodox hypothesize a world where 30% are alra Orthodox and then even more so

57:29

that's a huge problem uh and uh there are other problems inside the society as

57:35

well and uh so one could argue that the future of Israel uh is not a Rosy one

57:43

and that this is a system that could begin to unravel from within U you know

57:49

I've heard a number of Israelis say in recent years the greatest threat to Israel is not external enemy the

57:56

greatest threat to Israel is the Israeli people themselves right and just all

58:02

those centrifugal forces of play inside of uh of Israel and by the way if you do

58:10

not have ethnic cleansing and Israel remains an apartheid state uh one could

58:17

argue that will contribute in major ways to the unraveling of of Israel it's just

58:23

you know who wants to live in an apartheid state and the example that people use to illustrate that point is

58:30

South Africa right South Africa was an apartheid state and it was not sustainable over the long term I think a

58:37

very good case could be made that an Israel State a greater Israel that's an aparte State it's just not sustainable

58:43

of course because the people on the other hand they don't feel safe if nothing will change the October the

58:50

seventh will happen again yep that's that's the logic of the conflict y uh

58:55

sir you said that from one side is Israel supported by the powerful

59:01

American Navy and Air Forces and from one other side there are Palestinians

59:07

but there are also other actors in the region Iran Hezbollah uh fatak on the West Bank uh

59:15

do you see the possibility of uh bigger anti-israeli Alliance wider war in the

59:22

region that uh maybe Israel cannot win yes I think that's true I mean if

59:31

you look at uh the war that's now taking place with

59:36

Hezbollah the Israelis cannot defeat Hezbollah they tried in 2006 and they fa

59:43

they they in 1982 they invaded the Israelis invaded Lebanon 1982 it was a

59:49

disaster then they invaded in 2006 it was another disaster and Hezbollah is

59:55

now pounding Northern Israel with artillery and Rockets and the Israelis are firing back and the Israelis can't

1:00:02

win the houthis recently landed their first missile in Israel it landed in an

1:00:09

open field so it didn't do any damage but you want to think about that the houthis are developing the capability to

1:00:16

hit Israel Hezbollah the estimates are that hezb has 150,000 rockets and

1:00:22

missiles Hamas is still continuing to fire rockets at Israel not many but

1:00:29

they're still at it right and then there's Iran which just attacked Israel

1:00:35

with a massive Fleet of drones cruise missiles and ballistic missiles so the

1:00:41

external threat environment for Israel has gotten worse with time uh who is responsible for the uh

1:00:49

recent escalation between Iran and Israel oh the Israelis for sure right uh

1:00:56

the Israelis attacked the Iranian Embassy in

1:01:01

Damascus uh this is unacceptable according to international law and

1:01:07

international Norms right it is like attacking Sovereign Iranian territory

1:01:13

when the Americans first heard that the Israelis had done this they were shocked

1:01:19

because they understood that the that the Iranians would respond and of course

1:01:24

the Iranians responded by by attacking Israel and then Israel responds by

1:01:29

attacking uh Iran but fortunately the United States was able to play a key role in tamping down that conflict and

1:01:36

preventing it from escalating at least so far but there's no question that the Israeli started that and there's no

1:01:43

question the Americans were furious at Israel for doing that but again as I said to you earlier in the conversation

1:01:50

the Israelis feel that they can do pretty much anything they want and if the Americans get angry it doesn't do

1:01:56

matter because the lobby will protect them yes but from the other hand the Israelis they have also strong arguments

1:02:02

they argue that Iran is a sponsor of Hamas and sponsor of

1:02:08

Hezbollah what does it mean to say it's a supporter of course there's no question that Iran provides Hamas and

1:02:15

Hezbollah with weapons uh but uh what the Israelis like

1:02:20

to argue is that it is that Iran is the Puppet Master

1:02:26

and Iran is telling Hamas and telling Hezbollah exactly what to do and this is

1:02:33

ridiculous the principal cause of the conflict with Hamas is the Israeli occupation it's what the Israelis have

1:02:40

done to the gazin that's why they revolted they didn't need the Iranians

1:02:46

to tell them to revolt the Iranians it's quite clear didn't even know Hamas was

1:02:53

about to attack on October 7th uh and the Iranians have made it clear

1:02:59

they don't want to fight with Israel and they don't want to fight with the United States and the United States has made it

1:03:04

clear it doesn't want to fight with Iran so the question you have to ask yourself is how did we end up in this fight then

1:03:11

and the answer is very simple the Israelis dragged us into it just like they dragged us into this fight with

1:03:17

Hamas and the fight with Hezbollah again as I said to you earlier Israel is an

1:03:23

albatross around their neck uh how will the Israeli Iranian conflict

1:03:32

de develop uh will Israel and Iran continue to cliip the escalation ladder

1:03:38

I think not it's not likely that will happen in the foreseeable future I think

1:03:44

the Israelis now have their hands full with Hamas and Hezbollah and um I think the Americans

1:03:51

have made it clear no war with Iran however there's one giant caveat to what

1:04:00

I just said and that is that Iran is a threshold nuclear state that could quite

1:04:06

easily become a nuclear weapon state and if Iran takes that leap from being a

1:04:14

threshold state to being an actual nuclear weapon state the Israelis are

1:04:19

likely to attack yes and especially that some of the Rockets Iranian rockets that were

1:04:26

fired uh towards Israel when aiming at deona nuclear Center on netive desert I

1:04:36

I don't believe that the Israelis say that I don't believe that I I think the

1:04:41

Israelis I mean the Iranians would have been remarkably foolish to attack deona

1:04:49

why is that because there would have been nuclear fallout I mean hitting a nuclear installation like deona would

1:04:54

have had very ser ious consequences and the Israelis would not have retaliated

1:04:59

with a minor attack against Iran it's very clear that the Iranians

1:05:05

tailored their attack on Israel to make it clear that this was a limited attack

1:05:12

that was not designed to do a lot of damage and did not want to cause

1:05:17

escalation the Iranians worked with the Americans the Americans and the Iranians

1:05:23

worked together to orchestrate a limited attack so this was just a

1:05:28

theater yes it was in in a certain way it was but you want to understand that

1:05:33

if you go out and attack damona that is asking for a giant

1:05:39

escalation uh so you think that Israel would use uh nuclear weapons uh against

1:05:46

Iran in this scenario I don't know but they would definitely attack Ukrainian

1:05:51

excuse me Iranian nuclear sites right last question about uh

1:05:56

America and American involvement in the Middle East if if a war between Israel

1:06:03

and Iran uh begins will the United States take part in it do you believe

1:06:09

that there will be a war like that if American involvement not only defending Israel

1:06:16

like we saw a couple of weeks ago but also attacking Iran it's it's hard to say for sure I

1:06:25

mean because a lot would depend on the circumstances in which the war broke out

1:06:31

uh and who was attacking who if Israel were to attack Iran I don't think we

1:06:37

would participate if Iran were to attack Israel I think we would get

1:06:44

involved uh but I think the the the main

1:06:49

point I would make is that the Americans have no interest in a war with Iran

1:06:56

it just makes no sense at all sir sorry but what was the American interest in

1:07:02

war with Iraq let's say in 2003 that's exactly right we had no interest it was

1:07:08

a disaster what was our interest in the war in Afghanistan that's my point yes

1:07:13

but I think we've learned our lesson oh right now I don't want to put too much

1:07:19

stock in that argument because the Americans have proved that uh they don't learn all that well

1:07:26

but I think we understand full well that a war with Iran would not be good

1:07:32

remember the Russians are allied with the Iranians the Chinese are allied with the Iranians we don't want the Iranians

1:07:39

to go nuclear and if we get into a war with them that will give them a very powerful incentive to go nuclear

1:07:46

furthermore you want to remember as we talked about before the Americans have problems in East Asia they have problems

1:07:52

in Ukraine the last thing we want is a war in the Middle East with Iran uh uh I think it's unlikely that

1:08:00

that will happen I think we will go to Great Lengths uh to make sure that there's no war between the United States

1:08:07

uh and Iran we will fight each other with proxies right that will continue to happen but we will I think I hope go to

1:08:15

Great Lengths to prevent it from escalating ladies and gentlemen professor John M shimer

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